During the first local commercial break of last night’s Super Bowl broadcast, residents of Savannah, Ga., were treated to something truly incredible. Personal injury lawyer Jamie Cxxxxo bought the entire two-minute block of local advertising and aired the masterpiece you see above.

there is no center: the more progressives capitulate, the more boldly the conservatives express their vision, and the further to the right the mainstream moves. The reason is that conservatives speak from an authentic moral position, and appeal to voters’ values. Liberals try to argue against them using evidence; they are embarrassed by emotionality. They think that if you can just demonstrate to voters how their self-interest is served by a socially egalitarian position, that will work, and everyone will vote for them and the debate will be over. In fact, Lakoff asserts, voters don’t vote for bald self-interest; self-interest fails to ignite, it inspires nothing – progressives, of all people, ought to understand this.

I, for one, don’t argue naked self-interest. I sometimes argue for what I consider a broad self-interest (nobody benefits if the whole thing falls apart), but mostly I argue fairness. I certainly bolster my argument with facts and figures, but at its core, it’s fairness. And that’s morality. Emotionality, even.

A true Republican! I am fully on board with doing some deeply immoral shit until I have some personal tragedy/experience of some kind that makes me convert to the opposite! All of you schmucks who saw the deeply immoral shit for what it was without necessarily experiencing it personally aren’t as authentic as I am. Besides which, since I have no inherent principles, I am probably doing all kinds of other, different deeply immoral shit anyway. Freedom!

Uh-huh. I wonder if Ozzy Osbourne, Esq., entertained committing his talents to one of the countless social and legal aide societies out there instead of focusing his righteous anger on chasing ambulances.

@Arclite: Yep, hindbrain rules forebrain for a large percentage of homo sapiens.

I can do a righteous rant due to my upbringing in the Bible Belt, even if I’m the “wrong” religion. But I’d rather spend my time raising my athiest six-year-old in “godless” Massachusetts — where we have fewer divorces, pregnant teens (outside of Gloucester) and more money than the idiots I grew up among. Arguing with them is like, as Barney said, arguing with the dining room table.

I lived in Savannah back in 1993-1995 when I was stationed at Hunter AAF. Great city, and I loved it, especially Kevin Barry’s pub down on River Street. It can be a really, really rough town, though. One of those places where random, fucked up murders for no apparent reason just seem to crop up.

The reason is that conservatives speak from an authentic moral position, and appeal to voters’ values.

Sorry, no. Conservatives speak from a consistent view of Our tribe is the best! and appeal to voters’ basest instincts to keep Those Others away. It is not a “moral position” to deny food to children, or healthcare to anyone.

What liberals do need to get better at is couching their own views as “moral positions.” I don’t see why we find this so hard — it’s not just bad economic policy to cut food stamps, it’s fucking immoral to take food out of people’s mouths. Are we still so afraid of the “bleeding heart liberal” label that we aren’t willing to frame our moral positions as moral positions?

A big part of the reason Dr. Jeffrey McDonald is in prison from being found guilty in 1979 for the 1970 murder of his wife and children in Ft. Bragg, NC (rather than being found not guilty and walking free), was that he designated hot-dog Philadephia lawyer Bernie Segal his lead counsel, instead of the courtley-mannered, but immensely talented local Raleigh lawyer Wade Smith (who served as local/assistant counsel). NOTE: I’m not here arguing whether McDonald should or should not have been found guilty on the courtroom evidence, nor whether he is or is not in fact guilty. I’m simply making the point that flashy isn’t always better in courtroom presentations by lawyers, though being a convincingly good storyteller of the way you want the jury to understand the case obviously is. Which is what Wade Smith could have done much better, in less “sledgehammer” fashion, before a local southern jury than Siegal did (his arrogance came through to the jury and probably rubbed off on his client).

People should know their station, for one, and defer to the wealthy and “people in charge” at all times.

And people of color ought not to mix with other colors, for another. Those are conservative “values” you can take to the bank.

Lakoff is I’m sorry full of it to the gills. Modern conservatives have succeeded because they are fucking sociopathic liars, period. Not because they’ve articulated a superior moral agenda, but because they lie their balls off and drive their constituents crazy with fear.

Oh, and they cheat, rig elections, and use gerrymandering to stay in power. The modern GOP is such a diseased, dysfunctional party. If it were not for the huge truckloads of 1% cash propping it up, it would vanish overnight, instantly.

So true. And conservatives also have a well-oiled propaganda machine behind them to stir up those fears. I’ve started pointing out that cable news is Fear TV to anyone I see watching cable news in general, but Fox News in particular: “Why do you watch that? They just want you to be afraid so they can keep you glued to the TV to find out about that thing you’re now afraid of. Why are you letting those people on TV influence how you feel? There’s a lot of great stuff happening in the world. Do you see them talking about any of it? No, it’s all bad stuff and things aimed at making you afraid. Do you like being afraid?”

And rounding out my dispute with this lame-ass argument, liberals don’t get a voice in the discussion because the power brokers behind Conservatism have bought out those outlets and filled them with garbage. When we DO get through to people over the tremendous din of right-wing propaganda, it is because the truth is either inescapable, or the lie has become so silly that only the fucking fruitcake cultists believe it.

@Violet: The whole “they want you to be afraid” thing is why I never watched those one-hour shows that used to be on in the evenings. You know the ones, the promo would say something like “Are you feeding your kids something that could kill them? Find out next week”.

I’m sorry, but if your goal is to frighten me, you do not have my best interests in mind.

the more progressives capitulate, the more boldly the conservatives express their vision, and the further to the right the mainstream moves. The reason is that conservatives speak from an authentic moral position, and appeal to voters’ values. Liberals try to argue against them using evidence; they are embarrassed by emotionality.

Also, they spend all their time talking about “framing” and “Overton windows” and other rhetorical analysis bullshit instead of doing the hard work of talking to voters and winning elections.

@slippytoad: Some of Lakoff”s points regarding the psychology of effective persuasion are useful to remember, but I can’t see them as fool proof guides to the underlying cause of all of liberalism’s ills in the U.S.

As you mentioned, having multi billionaire sugar daddies, multi billion dollar corporations all working a committed core of terrified and ruthless racists who believe they are fighting for their survival plays a big role, and I don’t see how Lakoff’s recommendations will change things there.

Self interest is a very powerful force. And a lot of the white conservative impulse is out of self interest. The ‘keep the government out of my Medicare’ slogan is absurd logically, but the motive of keeping the current Medicare system intact is the source of that foolish logic, and keeping the status quo at all costs (to others in society if need be) is very important to frail and sick oldsters. And behind that apparent stupidity lies a shrewd intuition for when they will lose their benefits. That is why they will vote for GOPers who are trying to take Medicare and Social Security benefits away from them, but block those very GOPers’ plans for the heist.

I can see why the reactionary GOP wing, and the financiers are frustrated, since they can win some elections, but cannot close the deal. They run around trying to storm the citadel of their designated marks from different angles, and different plans of attack, but the marks push back whenever the GOP gets definite about what it wants to do.

I’m sorry, but if your goal is to frighten me, you do not have my best interests in mind.

AKA, the Sweeps Months Specials. If you watch network TV, you can always tell when February/May/November starts, because suddenly there’s a rash of “Is Your Bra Safe? Find out tonite!” pseudo-investigations being aggressively advertised. As I understand it, those months are when every local station’s advertising rates are set, so the “lifestyle danger” specials are carefully hoarded (to go with the special-guest-star/high-dollar-CGI episodes every series will run in those months).

I somehow suddenly wonder if Herr Doktor Lakoff can recognize an authentic moral position more accurately than he can distinguish an authentic sheep from a self-justifying wolf garbed in authenic fleece.

Lakoff is I’m sorry full of it to the gills. Modern conservatives have succeeded because they are fucking sociopathic liars, period. Not because they’ve articulated a superior moral agenda, but because they lie their balls off and drive their constituents crazy with fear.

Which is pretty much exactly what Lakoff’s point was, only you phrased it in more viscerally direct language. In fact, you expressed it in exactly the kind of emotionally charged language that appeals to progressives.

BTW: Lakoff didn’t say ANYTHING in the quote about whether right-wingers were being truthful, only that their weapon was emotionally-charged language rather than logical self-interest.

back in the 80s and early 90s, you didn’t wanna be too far away from the downtown tourista district after dark. could be worth your life if you strayed…and sometimes during the days of the ricky jiven’s gang where an initiate had to kill someone to get in the gang, you didn’t have to stray at all to get executed.
the quote i remember from one of the wanna be gang members, supposedly right before killing the manager of the famous Pink House restaurant was “I’m gonna go get me a cracker”.
and proceeded to do so.
IIRC, one evening, in one of the squares, the gang member walked up to the manager and the manager’s girlfriend. the gang member pulled a gun and demanded the manager’s wallet. when the manager pulled out his wallet, the gangster shot him in the face and ran, leaving the wallet for all he wanted was the “scalp”, not the wallet.

ah, yes. the good old days. thankfully, arrests and convictions of the jiven’s gang and a much increased police patrol has knocked most of the violent stuff back to the edges of town.

@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for the tip that Wiley Cash was going to be on Weekend Edition on Sunday. It took me 5 tries to post the link above – it kept crashing as I tried to post a comment, and I was trying to recall how to spell your name, finally just said fuck it.

Masterpiece? This is where someone says, “YMMV.” I thought it was an idiotic ad. To think he could have spent the money wasted on making that silly nonsense and done some good with it.

Since people’s tastes vary widely, there’s no point arguing about the merits of this particular ad. I just thought I’d post a dissenting comment to JCole’s gushing commentary in the hope that it will help prevent Jamie Casion’s gigantic ego from crowding out the other eight planets (seven, if you hate Pluto) and leaving the solar system with nothing but the Earth and Casino’s delusional image of himself.

A PI attorney here in Las Vegas bought a local spot during the first half as well. A friend of mine who runs a local Nissan dealership paid $50,000 for a 30-second spot during the pregame show, but very early into it (as in maybe 11 AM local time, 4 1/2 hours before the game), so I can’t imagine what the attorney’s local spot cost him.

Only van down by the river car in a field Cole could get excited about a fuking personal injury lawyers commercial. I don’t care if there are fuking cgi lightning bolts coming out of his arse. It’s still just another fuking ambulance chaser commercial.